Extreme Couponing
by xXxMusicSavedMyLifeXxX
Summary: Inspired by the TLC show "Extreme Couponing." Ryan and Horatio (along with Alexx, Kyle, and Eric) head to the supermarket with binders full of coupons. Ryan wants the overall cost to be zero. Will they hit their goal or will they end up paying more than what they have. Horatio's point of view.


"….Really?"

I sighed as I stared at the massive pile of newspapers. I looked up at Ryan, who had the largest grin on his face I have ever seen. I dropped my head on the kitchen table. Kyle groaned as well.

"No, I saved you two trouble by getting all the coupons out. Now, we just have to cut them all out."

I rubbed my temples and picked up my scissors. Ryan sat in my lap and happily cut out coupons. We've been doing this for twelve hours a day. _For twelve weeks so far_. My fingers were starting to cramp, but Ryan refused to let us break. Smacking me in the back of the head, he'd remind us exactly why we were couponing. We're actually expecting three children under the age of three and two teenage daughters only two years apart, and with Ryan being fired from his job, our income has dropped. We were actually saving a lot of money by doing this, but tell that to my fingers. They feel like they're about to fall off.

"H, we're almost done," my lover said with that stupid grin on his face still.

"Thank the Lord!" I exclaimed, putting down my scissors to shake my hand. They tingled as blood rushed to my fingertips.

I glanced at Kyle. He was obviously happy with that fact as well, his cutting becoming more frantic. There were about fifty more papers filled with coupons. Fifty used to be a lot two weeks ago, now, it's the magic number when it's split between three, and I'm pretty sure soon five. This will definitely go a lot faster later on in life.

"How much stuff do you plan on getting, Dad?" Kyle asked me.

"You're looking at the wrong person. Ryan's made the list."

"You'll see when we go to the store," was all he said before he scolded us for not cutting.

Four hours later, we were finally done cutting and organizing each and every coupon into the five different five inch binders we had got from Staples. It was dark by the time Ryan had finished calculating the retail price and the price everything will be after coupons. And I knew what that meant. It was going to be a long day at the supermarket. This was, by far, our largest trip in the two years we've been couponing. Ryan and I walked to our stockpile. With all the extra money saved, Ryan (without my permission because he knew I would not agree on it) had built a garage that could fit the entire team's personal cars and Hummers along with maybe one or two extra cars. Shelves upon shelves upon shelves filled the entire space. All that was his space and in the very back corner was my gun rack, very well hidden behind all the shelves. Our stockpile wasn't quite large yet, but I was pretty sure after tomorrow, every shelf would be full or practically full. Hanging on hooks were several backpacks. He loaded each bag with a binder of coupons. Earlier he had called Eric and Alexx to help. He was planning on using. _Every. Single. One _of his coupons.

"I don't look forward to tomorrow," I admitted, pulling Ryan into my arms.

Ryan chuckled and tilted his head back to bite my chin. "You'll live, Horatio. We have Eric, Alexx, and Kyle helping. I've double checked everything like ten times. I calculate we can get everything on my list for under fifty bucks."

"I thought it was for free."

"That's what I hope, but if I miscalculate something, I want to have some kind of money."

I chuckled softly and kissed his nose. "You put too much work into this."

"I have to. Our family of three is going to grow into a family of eight and three can't take care of themselves yet." He sighed softly. "Plus, this will save several trips to the store."

I shrugged. That was always a plus. "Luckily we already have a five bedroom home, hm?"

"Eight sharing three bathrooms though? It's gonna end up deadly someday."

We laughed before heading out the garage, locking it up before showering together and heading to bed to get ready for a long stressful day at the supermarket.

(-_-) (-_-) (-_-) (-_-) (-_-)

Just our luck, the five of us managed to park our cars right beside each other. Great. Ryan, Kyle, Eric, Alexx, and I were armed with our backpack and binder. (We had a backpack so were could have more room in the buggies for groceries.) Ryan handed each of us a list of things we were to get. Lucky me, it was the feminine products. Ryan looked down at his list, but cut a glance at me and smiled from ear to ear.

"Keep on, and I'm going to wipe that smile off your face when we get back," I warned, slipping my sunglasses into my pockets when we got inside.

Ryan looked at his list again, running through the process in his head. "Okay, each of you grab two buggies and follow everything that's on your list. Make sure you get everything, or this won't turn out right." There was a collective 'yeah.' "Alright, split up and lets the shopping begin.

We did a five way high five before grabbing two carts each. Out of all of us Ryan had the easiest job. He was going to collect all the things he had pre ordered, Kyle had beverages, Alexx had things for the three children, Eric had cleaning supplies, and I had feminine things. It took us all about three hours to get everything we needed, so then we teamed back up so Ryan could double check everything and compare it to his estimates. When we checked out in the clear, we took on five different registers.

"That's quite the load you have here…" the cashier said with a deadpan expression.

I nodded once. "Well, my husband and I are adopting and this is how he decided to handle it."

I watched the moniter as she scanned each thing as I loaded more and more. The price was reaching into the five hundreds now. Wow. It steadily raised to over nine hundred dollars.

"Do you have any coupons or store card?"

I opened by backpack to take out the large binder. I unloaded _all _of the coupons as ordered and got out my store card. The card was scanned first, dropping the totally from nine hundred to seven hundred thirty-three dollars. I blew out air. That was pretty steep, though I was confident that Ryan's calculations were spot on. One by one, I handed her the coupons. I watched as the price steadily went down. A story manager was standing by her side soon just in case anything went wrong. Luckily, Ryan had evenly spaced everything between the five of us that there wouldn't be any problem. I was completely shocked when I got the total.

"You're total after coupons is $0.00 and we owe you five dollars. Well calculated, my friend." She handed me a five, which I put in the binder and put it in the backpack I put back on my back.

"Wow, I wasn't expecting that. We have never hit zero before. The lowest before was ten dollars, so…wow…That's amazing."

She smiled at me, and slowly we gathered at the front of the store. People were curious what our total cost was overall.

"$0.00," said Alexx.

"$0.00 with five dollars owed to us," I said

"$0.00," said Kyle.

"Two cents." Way to go Eric. Killed the sequence.

"$0.00!" Ryan exclaimed happily.

We all cheered along with a few other shoppers. That's amazing. We managed to get over one thousand dollars' worth of stuff for only two cents and we got back five dollars. That's a win.

(-_-) (-_-) (-_-) (-_-) (-_-)

It took all night, but we had got everything unloaded and organized in the garage. That was a pretty successful shopping trip if I say so myself. We have enough boxes or cereal, pasta, hot dogs, chips, trail mix and things of the like as well as lasagna to last us a good while. I yawned. That was a tiring trip.

"Well, I know where I'm going if I need deodorant or a new toothbrush," Eric said, laughing.

"No, no, you're welcome to it if you need it. We got plenty of it now."

Alexx smiled. "That was actually pretty fun. Count me in again."

"Yeah, is there anything we can do to help?"

Ryan rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Find newspapers and magazines with coupons in them."

"Could you please cut what you find out too?" Kyle and I pleaded.

I took a bag of trail mix and opened it. Maybe couponing wouldn't be so bad once we have more than three people cutting out coupons. It was tiring after twelve straight weeks of doing it practically all day.


End file.
